Earlier this week, Treyarch finally unveiled its fourth title in the Call of Duty: Black Ops series. There was plenty of hate towards the changes in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s multiplayer, some interest in the new Zombies maps and a bit of shock at Battle Royale with Blackout. However, when rumours of no single-player campaign were confirmed, it felt simultaneously fitting and strange for a Call of Duty title.
Treyarch co-studio head Dan Bunting sat down with Eurogamer to talk about that (among other things). In response to players saying “no campaign, no sale”, Bunting replied, “I think change is always going to be hard for people. I would say to our fans, Treyarch has never let you down over the years. This is a studio you know is always going to deliver the best of the experiences you know and love, especially with the Black Ops series. We are delivering so much more of what players spend most of their time doing in our games in the series.
“From the multiplayer, with the way we are going much deeper into the validating new playstyles, so anybody can pick up the game and play it and feel like they can have fun, to zombies and having the biggest content delivery we’ve ever done in a game launch, to our brand new Blackout mode, which is inspired by the battle royale genre but done in our own unique way.”
Though Black Ops 3 producer Jason Blundell once claimed that players spend good amount of time in all modes, the overall confusing nature and terrible writing of the third game’s story turned many off. If reports of Black Ops 4’s original campaign are true, then it would have likely progressed in the same fashion if Activision hadn’t apparently made the call to remove it.
It’s not like solo players have been left completely out in the cold. In response to what exactly they could do in Black Ops 4, Bunting said that, “In multiplayer we’re delivering a series of solo missions that can take you deeper into understanding each of the specialists you’re going to play in multiplayer. It’s going to give you backstory.
“It’s going to give you some worldbuilding setup of, why do these characters exist? Who do they work for? What kind of operations do they run on? Just giving players a sense of connectedness to the world they’re engaging in for so long, and tell the stories of those characters we just barely touched on in Black Ops 3, and introduce some new ones in the process as well. That series of missions will also help you refine your skillset with each of those characters, so you can go into multiplayer and feel a sense of mastery.”
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 releases on October 12th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.